Strong Soles
by Illustriousgiraffe
Summary: Wanda doesn't know how to be alone, she also doesn't know why Stark thinks some shoes will help her. No Romance. Feels. (I didn't spell souls wrong its a pun)


**Just a little idea I had. SPOILERS (and sadness) Also sorry I am so bad at updating other stories, I promise I'll get around to it.**

Wanda was sitting in her newly assigned room at the avengers base. She hadn't had a room which she could leave voluntarily in a very long time.

When she had been part of a normal family, a whole family, she and Pietro had shared the largest room in their apartment. She still thought of that room when she needed to calm her blazing thoughts.

Their beds had been placed in the center of the space, a rug and night table between them. The walls were a soft yellow and the floors were made of slightly warped wood. On good days sunshine used to flood through the two windows behind their beds, making the room glow with an antique sort of light. When they were lucky the sun would cut through the crystal Wanda had hung in her window and make brilliant patterns on the walls and ceiling. Sometimes they would just lay on their beds, stare up, and point to the dancing rainbows that the crystal cast.

There was none of that here. She was in a modern steel room, no emotion in it. It was very well equipped, with everything necessary for living. She had her own bathroom, there was a bed, proper lighting, and a computer among other things. Everything required to supply an efficient warrior.

Wanda missed the warmth of her old room. She wished she could go back and live in those moments forever. She was tempted to create such a reality in her head to escape the one she was in, where her other half was gone and the world was a dark place.

She realized that was all her life would be now—cold—lacking that warm glow. Pietro had been with her her entire life, he had always been there with a hand to hold or a shoulder to cry on. Wanda had been able to face the darkest of surroundings with Pietro providing warmth by her side. When they were in the labs she had been able to keep herself content just with the knowledge that her brother was near, even if she couldn't see him.

Now, Instead of a few feet of cement between them, there was the immeasurable distance of a lifetime. She would have to live her entire life before she would reach where Pietro was.

Part of her longed for death. She wished she could let herself succumb to the grief. But she knew Pietro would be furious at such thoughts. He would glare at her in anger and in pain and grab both her arms and tell her that she was being ridiculous. He would embrace her tightly and rest his head atop hers to make sure she was still there and not going to do anything stupid.

She sighed. Maybe she would leave this place. But where would she go, she had no family, she had never been on her own before.

Could she really stay with these heroes? They seemed tolerable but how could she get to know them all by herself. She and Pietro were a matched set. She barely knew who she was without him there to complete her. Wanda put her head in her hands. The polished floor offered her no solace, only her own broken reflection.

There was a whoosh and Wanda's head shot up to look at the door. Stark was standing there, looking distracted as always.

"Don't you know how to knock?" She asked coolly.

He smirked. "Have you met me? I have zero personal boundaries."

She didn't say anything and remained perched on the edge of her bed, ignoring the man's gaze.

"You know, I have a lot of trouble sleeping-"

"I can not fix nightmares. I can only cause them." She snapped, interrupting him.

"Geez Louise, Red. I wasn't finished. I was saying that, when I am not sleeping (which is like 23 hours a day), I tend to tinker around in the lab a little. Well, a lot. I basically live in there."

She looked at him blankly.

"Point is, I made you something," he pulled a sleek silver box from behind his back and presented it to her.

Wanda examined the box, looking back up at Stark. He raised his eyebrows and motioned for her to open it.

She prised the lid off and looked in confusion at the contents of the parcel. In it were a pair of sleek, jet black running shoes with a faint silver lightning bolt running across each side. The laces were a dark, shimmery blue and the lining inside was a lighter shade of the same color. The soles were pitch black with specks of silver in them. They were beautifully crafted.

"I don't understand," she said, looking at Stark in confusion.

"Well . . . You know how your brother was really fast?"

She looked at him like he was an imbecile. He _was_ an imbecile.

"Yeah," he continued "well I got to thinking, because honestly that's all I ever do, not very good for me either . . ."

Wanda looked very close to throwing him out of her room, and not necessarily by the door.

"Aaaanyway," he drawled, "I thought, hey, this kid runs pretty fast. Must be hell the amount of friction his feet get as he speeds around. Then I thought about how often he must need new shoes. Like, he must have worn a pair to shreds every day."

Wanda looked at him, well he wasn't wrong. Pietro did go through shoes pretty fast. The soles always wore away before he could get a week's worth of running out of them.

"So, being the genius inventor I am, I thought I would try to fix the problem. The night before Segovia I even drafted some models for a pair of shoes with vibranium infused rubber soles that would give speedy Gonzalez some traction but also stay in one piece for longer than a week."

Wanda looked back at the shoes. Pietro would have loved them. They were just his style, sleek and flashy. But they looked much too small for him.

"I still don't understand," Wanda said, her voice fragile.

"I made these for you," the avenger said.

Wanda didn't know what to say "I . . ."

"I never got the chance to make them for him, but I still had the schematics. I thought: why waste the idea? But these were shoes designed for one man, who would be able to get any use out of them?" Tony turned his heads towards her, daring to make eye contact. "Then I thought of someone who might need them more than anyone."

Wanda closed her eyes tightly.

"I did a little resizing, and had these made for you. So you can have a little reminder of him wherever you are."

Wanda couldn't decide whether she wanted to smile or sob.

"These shoes may have lasted him a few years but for someone as slow as us they'll last a lifetime." Tony said with a smile.

The Scarlet Witch picked up one of the shoes gingerly, it had weight in all the right places, it felt durable and yet was somehow quite delicate. Pietro would have adored the design, he would have spent hours running circles around her and telling her about his new shoes. She let out a sob and clutched the shoe to her chest.

Wanda felt a gentle yet awkward hand on her back. This only made her miss her brother more. They had been so connected. He had always known how to make her feel better. She started to cry harder, and before she knew it she had manipulated Stark out the door and slammed it behind him.

If the avengers noticed that Wanda only wore one pair of shoes anymore they didn't say anything. And if Wanda noticed that she ran a little faster and stood a little taller while wearing them she wasn't about to question it.

 **Hope you liked it, tell me what you think :)**


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